Heather Gilberds is Associate Director and Editor for the Center for International Media Assistance at the National Endowment for Democracy. She is responsible for driving CIMA’s strategy and managing CIMA’s publications program. In this role, she ensures overall alignment of CIMA’s publication portfolio with its mission and research agenda, and fosters relationships with research organizations, universities, think tanks, policy institutes, governments and news institutions. With 13 years of experience in global media development, Heather specializes in the role of media to foster democratic processes, improve governance, and support development and aid effectiveness agendas. Her expertise includes strategic planning, research, media policy and evaluation of media development initiatives. Heather is in the final stages of a PhD in Communication at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada where her research analyzes the role of media to broker trust between citizens, civil society and the state during the Ebola crisis in West Africa. Prior to CIMA, Heather worked with a wide variety of organizations as a researcher and practitioner, including Carleton University, Internews, Freedom House, Search for Common Ground and Farm Radio International. She has published on issues related to community radio, press freedom, independent media during crisis, donor funding to the media, and the influence of new technologies on information ecosystems in developing countries and transitioning democracies.

Mark Nelson is the Senior Director for the Center for International Media Assistance at the National Endowment for Democracy. He is a former journalist and development specialist who has written extensively on aid effectiveness, governance and the role of media in development. He joined CIMA from the World Bank, where he spent 17 years as a governance and capacity development expert. Before moving to Washington in 2004, he spent eight years in Paris as head of the World Bank Institute’s European office, where he focused on democratic governance, including the role of the media. From 1985 through 1996, Mr. Nelson was European diplomatic correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, based in Brussels, Berlin and Paris. He covered the negotiations leading to the Maastricht Treaty, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the war in Bosnia. From 1992 to 1993 on leave from the Wall Street Journal, he was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He began his career as a researcher on international affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. From 1983 through 1985, he was a staff reporter at the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, where he covered local government. A native of South Carolina, he is a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio and completed a masters-level degree in international economics at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.